A 24-year-old Silicon Valley AI prodigy watched his $45 billion hedge fund implode just days before walking down the aisle for his lavish California wedding.<\/p>\n
Leopold Aschenbrenner, the founder of the AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness<\/a>, was putting the finishing touches on his wedding in Carmel this week when his high-flying investment empire began to unravel after reportedly borrowing heavily to make massive AI bets.<\/p>\n 24-year-old Leopold Aschenbrenner is the founder of Situational Awareness Columbia College<\/p>\n Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA Getty Images<\/p>\n The German-born investor, and turtleneck enthusiast, amassed a staggering $45 billion portfolio by piling into AI stocks and taking a huge private stake in Anthropic.<\/p>\n As his portfolio tumbled, Aschenbrenner scrambled to stop the bleeding, appealing to some of the world\u2019s biggest hedge funds and selling billions of dollars in holdings to Ken Griffin\u2019s Citadel, according to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a letter to investors Thursday, Aschenbrenner said he had sold part of his public stock portfolio and vowed to focus on risk management \u201cto ensure a higher level of resilience going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n The German-born AI wonderkid saw his $45 billion portfolio collapsing just days before his marriage Linkedin\/Leopold Aschenbrenner<\/p>\n Despite the dramatic selloff, his firm still manages a portfolio valued at more than $10 billion.<\/p>\n Aschenbrenner\u2019s meteoric rise has been nearly as remarkable as his recent fall.<\/p>\n He graduated from Columbia University at just 19 before working at Sam Bankman-Fried\u2019s FTX. He later joined OpenAI in 2023, where he was part of a team tasked with overseeing artificial superintelligence.<\/p>\n He was fired roughly a year later after allegedly leaking sensitive information to the husband of an Anthropic executive.<\/p>\n The setback did little to slow his rise in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n Avital Balwit is Aschenbrenner\u2019s fianc\u00e9e X\/@AvitalBalwit<\/p>\n